Sophocles's Philoctetes is a lean, psychologically complex tragedy about a famous Greek warrior who is marooned on a deserted island by his army after contracting a horrifying and debilitating illness. After years of fruitless and bloody warfare, the Greeks learn from an oracle that they will never conquer Troy without Philoctetes on their side. A small unit is sent back to the island to retrieve the suffering warrior—by any means necessary. The action of the play arises from the conflict between Philoctetes and the Greek soldiers who come to reclaim him nine years later. One of the soldiers, a teenager named Neoptolemus, soon finds himself in a seemingly irreconcilable ethical bind, torn between his desire to help the suffering man and duty to his army.

Philoctetes was first performed in 409 BCE, yet the title character's sense of abandonment and search for meaning in his suffering still speaks to us today, perhaps with greater force and urgency than ever before. Through modern medicine and warfare, we are creating a vast subclass of chronically ill patients, like Philoctetes, whom we isolate on deserted islands to live long and suffer alone. The play poses tough questions that cut to the core of the doctor/patient relationship, questions about the subjectivity of pain and the difficulty of pain management, the long-term challenges of caring for the chronically ill, and the ethical boundaries of medical practice.

Over the past two years, Bryan Doerries's translation of Philoctetes has enjoyed staged readings at Anne Bogart's SITI Company, The Culture Project's Impact Festival, and, most recently, at The Weill Medical College of Medicine of Cornell University. In every instance, audiences have responded profoundly to the play. People seem to recognize their fathers, uncles, lovers, and sometimes even themselves in Sophocles' depiction of the suffering soldier. At the most recent reading, medical students and doctors saw their patients in Philoctetes, connecting the myth with their own experiences in hospitals and hospice wards. The medical community's enthusiastic response confirms the play's unique power to open crucial space for dialogue within our culture about health care, chronic illness, and wounded soldiers returning from war.

The reading will be held in the second floor auditorium and will be followed by the roundtable Doctor/Patient Relationships upstairs at the Center.

To learn more about the Philoctetes Project, go to: Philoctetesproject.org

Bryan Doerries is a New York based writer and director. Over the past decade he has directed many of his own translations of Greek and Roman plays at theaters and universities across the country. Recent theatrical projects include The Bacchae of Euripides; Sophocles's Ajax, Antigone, Women of Trachis, Bloodhounds, and Philoctetes; Seneca's Phaedra and Octavia; and Virgil's Aeneid, Book IV. He has a B.A. in classics from Kenyon College and an M.F.A. in Directing from the University of California, Irvine.

Jesse Eisenberg has been in the films The Squid and The Whale, Roger Dodger, The Hunting Party and plays the title role in the upcoming The Education of Charlie Banks. On stage, he most recently played Philip in Lyle Kessler's Orphans, opposite Al Pacino and Shawn Hatosy.

Adam Ludwig is an actor and a member of the Philoctetes staff. He edits the Philoctetes website and the newsletter, Dialog. He has performed at regional theaters throughout the country, including Berkeley Rep, The Old Globe, The Pittsburgh Public, and A.C.T. He has appeared on television and in film and most recently played one of the leads in the Off-Broadway comedy Jewtopia. He has an M.F.A. in Acting from the American Conservatory Theater.

John Schmerling's Off and Off-Off Broadway performances include King Lear, The Golem, Billy Budd, Henry IV, Part I, Of Mice and Men, Pericles, Anouilh's Antigone, Rosencrantz and Guildenstern are Dead, The Tempest, Hamlet, and The Brothers Karamazov. He created the role of Maurice in the original cast of Tennessee Williams's Something Cloudy, Something Clear and appeared in the reading of Oscar Wilde's Salome with Al Pacino, Marisa Tomei, and David Strathairn. John is a member of Actors' Studio.

Michael Stuhlbarg was last seen as Edward Voysey in David Mamet's new adaptation of Harley Granville Barker's The Voysey Inheritance at the Atlantic Theater Company (OBIE, Joe A. Callaway Award, Lucille Lortel nomination, Drama League Honoree). His Broadway credits include The Pillowman (Tony nomination, Drama Desk Award, Drama League Honoree), The Invention of Love, Cabaret, Taking Sides, Saint Joan, Timon of Athens, The Government Inspector, Three Men On A Horse. Off-Broadway appearances include Measure for Pleasure (Lortel nomination, Drama League Honoree), Twelfth Night, The Winter's Tale, A Dybbuk, Richard II, Henry VIII, All's Well That Ends Well, Woyzeck, As You Like It (all with the Public Theater); Belle Epoque(Lincoln Center), The Mysteries(CSC), The Grey Zone(MCC), Old Wicked Songs (Drama League Honoree), Sweetbitter Baby (Playwright's Horizons), Mad Forest(MTC). Film/TV: Body of Lies, Afterschool, Damages; Studio 60 on the Sunset Strip, The Grey Zone, Solidarity, A Price Above Rubies, The Hunley, Law and Order: Criminal Intent, Alexander Hamilton.